


the monument of a memory (tear it down)

by extasiswings



Series: Storms & Saints [1]
Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Antonia Stark - Freeform, Eventual Romance, F/M, Howard Stark's A+ Parenting, Non-Consensual Touching, Rule 63, Slow Build
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-26
Updated: 2015-08-26
Packaged: 2018-04-17 09:49:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,534
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4662162
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/extasiswings/pseuds/extasiswings
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The first time Toni Stark meets Steve Rogers, she slams the door in his face. Things may or may not improve from there.</p><p>Or: A slightly more AU and introspective re-telling of Iron Man.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the monument of a memory (tear it down)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [shuofthewind](https://archiveofourown.org/users/shuofthewind/gifts).



> A huge thank you to shuofthewind who lets me flail to her about my Toni Stark feelings for hours on end and encouraged me to take another look at this concept. 
> 
> A note on the non-consensual touching tag: I tagged it because I don't want to trigger anyone, but I want to clarify that it refers only to the scene in Iron Man when Obie steals the arc reactor and nothing that happens or is referenced here goes beyond that scene.
> 
> Happy Reading!

The first time Toni Stark meets Steve Rogers, she slams the door in his face.

He gets as far as a smile and a few sentences (that admittedly she doesn’t hear much of because she’s a little caught up on the fact that _Captain America is at her front door and this better not be the next line of army bullshit trying to get her to reconsider_ ) before she tunes in enough to catch, “Howard’s daughter,” and _fuck that noise_.

Later, she will attribute her reaction to the undoubted concussion she has from her first flight test slamming her into the wall of the workshop, but in the moment all she thinks is, _there is not enough booze in the world for this shit_.

The thing is though, he stays. Why, she really couldn’t say, but when she checks the security feeds over an hour later, he’s still there and the look on his face is so open and lost and _sad_ , so she locks down the workshop, cursing herself all the while, and goes to try again.

(Later, she will also attribute this to her probable concussion, because _she does not care about Captain America and never has, she just doesn’t like loiterers_ )

When Toni opens the door again, the look on his face is so hopeful that she invites him in, and god, she’s such a masochist sometimes because she tries so hard to forget her father and his legacy— _for god’s sake, Antonia, I’m busy, don’t you understand_ —and here she is letting one of the biggest pieces of him into her life.

— _except is isn’t a surprise, not really, because she’s always wanted to know him, hasn’t she? Always wanted to meet the man her father never stopped talking about, never stopped looking for, the man she didn’t think she ever would have measured up to in his eyes even if she had been a boy_ —

It’s awkward. So awkward, because Toni can feel the tension beneath her skin, all of the little minefields of subjects waiting to be stepped on, his very presence grating at her nerves, and Captain America— _“Steve, please.” “Steve.”_ —looks at her like she can give him something and _she can’t, okay? She can’t_.

Cap—Steve surprises her though. He doesn’t say anything she expects him to, staying far away from the topics of her father and his company.

— _and it is his company even now, isn’t it? It was never really hers, was never really meant to be, the board made that opinion very clear when she first took over and the whispers that never truly went away are shouts now_ —

Instead he asks about her— _and god, when was the last time anyone actually formed an opinion about her by asking_ —and she doesn’t say much, but it’s still more honesty than anyone beyond Pepper and Rhodey has gotten from her in years.

_“Jarvis? Seems like kind of an odd name for a computer.”_

_“Well, he’s an AI, not just a computer, and the real Jarvis was a friend of the family. Practically raised me.”_

(She cringes when she thinks back on it later— _honestly, what was she thinking_ —and adds it to her list of concussion-related stupidity)

So, they talk, but Toni doesn’t last more than a couple hours before she’s antsy again, her mind flicking back to the workshop, running through equations and schematics.

— _it’s a bad habit, but she can’t help it, she can’t. She’s not bored, it’s just that her brain never stops working when she has a project and this is important, dammit, she can feel it, even though she doesn’t know why yet_ —

Steve doesn’t demand her attention though, not like most people do, assuming she’s being rude or disinterested when she fades away like that. Instead, he laughs, and it’s such a surprise that she meets his eyes completely for what might be the first time since he arrived.

There’s pain in his expression, the pain that comes from familiarity and loss combined, and she barely manages not to bristle when the next words out of his mouth are, “Do you have a project to get back to? Howard always…well. I wouldn’t want to keep you if you do. I just wanted—“

— _she holds her breath for an instant because she is not a replacement or a memory bank, she has nothing to offer him about her father because the man he knew was a man and not a shell and she’s so tired of the comparisons, even though this one is accurate, and even though it’s only been a few hours, she thinks she might want to get to know Steve Rogers, the man behind the icon, and she would really appreciate not having to add him to the list of people who only care about her for one reason if he reveals he was only ever looking for Howard’s daughter and not Toni Stark, because there’s a difference, there's a difference_ —

“—to see for myself that you were okay. I mean, I’ve seen the news, but well, I guess I needed to see for myself.”

— _and god, god, who even is this man, and does he have any idea what that means? For all intents and purposes, she's a complete stranger and not even the people who know her care enough to find out whether she's okay with very few exceptions (and she isn't, she isn't, because she can’t sleep without screaming, without tasting blood behind her teeth, can’t stay in the shower for more than one or two minutes at a time because she's drowning, always drowning, and the reactor presses against her ribs so she can’t breathe) and she wonders if maybe he understands_ —

“You aren’t wondering why I stopped making weapons?” It comes out tinged with bitterness, but she has to ask, _has to_ , because she trusts exactly two people and even they don’t understand, so how could he?

And yet, when Steve pauses, it’s not judgement Toni sees on his face, but sympathy. “I think you probably have your reasons,” he replies. “And I think…I think you shouldn’t have to justify them to anyone else. You certainly don’t owe me any kind of explanation.”

(Years later, and yes, it is years, because at the end of the day she’s still Toni Stark and she’s never been good with the feelings that really matter, she’ll admit to herself that she fell a little bit in love with him when he said that)

In the moment though, she only offers him the faintest of smiles as she walks him to the door. When he leaves, she goes back to her workshop and nothing really changes. Not then at least. The changes come later.

Later, when she’s being confronted by Christine Everheart, when Stark Industries officially locks her out, when Obie is standing in front of her with a fake smile plastered on his face, and she feels her shirt tear as he rips the arc reactor from her chest, leaving her exposed and more vulnerable than she ever thought she would be again…later, she remembers that conversation.

_“You don’t owe anyone anything. Not a damn thing. Not ever.”_

(Peggy says that when Toni is seven and she doesn’t forget, but it’s harder to hold onto as she gets older because everything is _so damn difficult all the time_ , and it almost makes her laugh that Steve should be the one to remind her of it because of course, _of course_ )

When everything is over and SHIELD comes in to do damage control, they hand her a set of index cards and tell her to lie. At first she accepts it because she’s hardly a hero, not with the amount of blood on her hands, not with the name Merchant of Death lingering at the back of her mind.

— _fix it, have to fix it, have to make it right, and isn’t that why? Isn’t that why she built the armor in the first place, because fuck everything, she’s trying here and this is hers, it's hers, and no one can take it from her_ —

It would be so easy, so easy to lie, except she’s spent so much of her life lying and _she deserves this one, dammit_.

Toni does plan on lying though, she does, but then she’s standing in front of the press and she looks down at the cards, and everything hits her at once.

— _the agent they sent said it would be easy to say it was a bodyguard, that no one would really believe it was her because, sad but true, she's a woman and who ever heard of a woman creating something like that, being something like that, and god, that's her whole life right there isn't it, summed up in a single sentence, and she's so sick of it, so damn tired_ —

“I am Iron Man,” Toni says firmly. “Which, by the way, is a stupid name, and I’m going to change it immediately, but yes. That’s me.”

The room explodes in a cacophony of shouts and flashes, but from the back, she thinks she hears a vaguely familiar laugh.

She smiles.

**Author's Note:**

> Title from "Various Storms & Saints" by Florence + The Machine.


End file.
